Entries from January 2016

I did a profile of Christy Clark shortly after she was chosen leader of the B.C. Liberals, a year ago. One of my big takeaways then: This is a woman who loves the political battle and is a master of strategy. (So strategic that she declined to talk to me for the profile, giving me […]

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Catching up on last week’s events, the story of the week was the confusion after Premier Christy Clark didn’t just announce an audit of TransLink — that was welcomed by mayors — but went on to say that she would no way allow a vehicle levy or other “new tax” to pay for transit projects. […]

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With the Marine Gateway project hitting the headlines after it sold out in four hours, you can bet developers will be encouraged to get moving on their projects in the area. First up are the two towers planned for the corner of Gateway, by architect James Cheng for Intracorp. Details are here for the project, […]

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Like Surrey, Prince George and Toronto, Vancouver is about to start a small rent bank, kicking in $150,000 of the total cost, with $350,000 coming from Streetohome, the private-sector group working on homelessness, and others. The bank is aimed at helping prevent homelessness by providing small loans to people to help them get or retain […]

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Tolls spread through the region instead of just the Port Mann, as Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts suggests? More thoughts on how to create lower-cost housing? How to preserve some of our beloved places — the Ridge, the Hollywood — from a city and developers whose attitude seems to be, “Sorry, I know you have some […]

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The affordable-housing task force, after five quick weeks of meetings, has come up with a very preliminary to-do list to try to create lower-cost housing for working people. Here are some of their ideas.

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The announcement by Coma Food Truck operator Jay Cho that he is winding up operations tomorrow provoked an outpouring of eating and grief this week by his many fans. Cho is giving up because he didn’t get selected for a permanent spot for the second year in a row. Although he seems to be successful […]

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The region’s mayors continue to struggle to find the formula for paying for transit and roads in the region long-term. Reporters tackled them yesterday at the end of their three-hour meeting, which Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom attended part of, and we all tried to pull something out of them about what’s coming up next. Weirdly, […]

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Sounds like cities have been listening to the grumbling they hear around them. As I note here, most municipalities have kept their tax increases low. (I hear West Van is pushing for zero) They know they need to, because they bear the brunt of complaint for the whole tax bill, of which city taxes are […]